Rare is a US
intelligence report that seems to strike joy in
the hearts of Iranian leaders. But the new US
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which
concludes that Iran is not currently at work on a
nuclear weapons program, appears to have done just
that.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki,
speaking in Tehran after the NIE on Iran was
released in Washington on Monday, welcomed the
report, saying "of course we are pleased".
The NIE, which is considered the most
authoritative written US
intelligence judgment,
represents the consensus view of 16 intelligence
agencies.
The last NIE on Iran in 2005
expressed "high confidence that Iran currently is
determined to have nuclear weapons". Two years
later, the NIE states with an equal degree of
"high confidence" that Iran suspended its nuclear
weapons program in 2003. The report, which said it
is "moderately confident" the weapons program has
remained inactive since then, is largely seen by
Western analysts as likely to blunt arguments in
Washington for military strikes to stop Iran's
nuclear drive.
So far, Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei have not publicly reacted to the
report - nor have any so-called moderates led by
former president Mohammad Khatami. But Mottaki was
echoed by officials from both the "pragmatic
conservative" camp of former president Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani and the "ultraconservative"
grouping led by Ahmadinejad.
The head of
Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy
Committee, Alaeddin Borujerdi, who is considered a
pragmatic conservative, was quoted by IRNA news
agency as saying the report has "nullified" claims
by US administration officials that Iran "is
thinking of producing nuclear bombs". He said
those officials are "under the strong influence of
the Zionist lobby" and had wanted to deflect
attention from Israel's nuclear program, but added
that the NIE should now provide the basis for a
new US approach to Iran.
Another committee
member, Elham Aminzadeh, told IRNA that the
administration of US President George W Bush
should apologize to Iranians, and that the UN
Security Council should cancel economic sanctions
on Iran. She added that the great powers and
international bodies should compensate Iran for
the moral and financial harm it has suffered from
sanctions, and allow it to resume unrestricted
trade and business around the world.
Gholamhussein Elham, an Iranian government
spokesman, also said the United States must pay
for the damage its "lies" had inflicted on Iran,
IRNA reported. He told reporters in Tehran that
Iran would continue its nuclear program "on the
basis of international treaties" and insisted that
its activities are supervised by the International
Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog.
Mohammad Ali Hosseini, Mottaki's
spokesman, said that the report "contains good
news for the European partners" of the United
States, such as Germany, Britain and France - all
of which have been involved in negotiations with
Iran over its nuclear program.
Those
European Union countries, known as the EU-3 in
their negotiations with Iran, have been
considering backing a third round of harsher UN
sanctions on Iran for failing to suspend uranium
enrichment as demanded by Security Council
resolutions. But Hosseini said that in light of
the US report, the EU-3 can revise their approach
and choose "wise and practical" decisions rather
than further punitive measures.
The
Foreign Ministry spokesman added that the most
important part of the NIE is that "it shows that
what Bush and other US officials claimed about the
'dangers' of Iran's nuclear program is baseless
and fabricated".
Iranian officials have
not commented on the NIE assessment "with high
confidence" that "until fall 2003, Iranian
military entities were working under government
direction to develop nuclear weapons". The US
intelligence agencies go on to conclude "with
moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a
minimum is keeping open the option to develop
nuclear weapons".
As for Tehran's major
newspapers, they have not yet reacted to the US
report.
Meanwhile, observers are waiting
for Ahmadinejad's and Khamenei's reactions to set
the tone of the Iranian debate. But moderates and
pragmatic conservatives are expected to use the US
report as an opportunity to push for more talks
with the United States. Indeed, IRNA quoted some
"observers" as saying that "the US is getting
ready for a grand bargain with Iran".
Shahram Chubin, an Iranian-born analyst,
expressed a similar view in an interview with
RFE/RL's Radio Farda. "I think what happens now is
a much more deliberate effort by the Europeans to
push the US to engage Iran across the board," said
Chubin, who is the director of research at the
Geneva Center for Security Studies.
He
said any such talks should "look for a solution
that, on the one hand, allows Iran some [uranium]
enrichment, and on the other hand, allows more
intensified or more intrusive [nuclear]
inspections".
(RFE/RL's Golnaz Esfandiari,
Iraj Gorgin, and Vahid Sepehri contributed to this
report.)
Copyright (c) 2007, RFE/RL
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